2024/08/22 by Đan Vy Vu, Mathias Funk, Yi-Ching (Janet) Huang +2
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Engineering · #3D Printing in Biomedical Research #Digital Transformation in Industry #Plant and Biological Electrophysiology Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1145/3685271
openalex publication_date 2024/08/22 · openalex created_date 2024/08/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
New digital tools offer biodesign with unprecedented opportunities for monitoring, fabricating, iterating, and scaling designs. Serving aligned purposes and beyond, the Digital Twin (DT) is an emerging concept in bioindustries including bioprocessing and agri-food. In these fields, DTs enable comprehensive digital representations of a living system or process with continuous bidirectional connection to the physical world. Despite the concept’s potential to address certain challenges of uncertainty in designing (with) living systems, its applications and implications in biodesign and research remain largely underexplored. To bridge this gap, we propose a conceptual framework that synthesizes existing instantiations of DTs within bioindustries through a dataflow lens. We mobilize the framework through a proof-of-concept DT for biofabrication with mycelium, by unpacking the dataflows within the identified design and operation cycles. We conclude with a discussion on how DT capabilities respond to uncertainties in designing with living systems, limitations, and future work.